Clapham” during Pepys’ time, but it had been a country village then, with its buildings and cottages spread out in a curve from the northeast corner of the common, and with fields and market gardens in place of the closely packed streets that had accompanied the arrival of the railway. The common remained, essentially inviolate, but many of the pleasant villas that once looked upon it had long since been demolished and replaced by the smaller and less inspired buildings of the nineteenth century.
The rain that had begun on the previous day was continuing to fall as Lynley drove along the high street. It rendered the usual kerbside collection of wrappers, sacks, newspapers, and assorted rubbish into sodden lumps that seemed bled of all colour. It also had the effect of eliminating virtually all pedestrian traffic. Aside from an unshaven man in a threadbare tweed coat who shuffl ed along, talking to himself and holding a newspaper spread over his head, the only other creature on the pavement at the moment was a mongrel dog sniffing at a shoe that lay on top of an upended wooden crate.
Lynley found a place to park on St. Luke’s Avenue, grabbed his coat and umbrella, and walked back to the hairdresser’s where he discovered that the rain had evidently put a damper on the hair business as well. He opened the door, was assailed by the eye-smarting odour that accompanies someone inflicting a perm upon another’s innocent head of hair, and saw that this malodorous operation of beauty was being performed on the hairdresser’s single customer. She was a plump woman perhaps fifty years old who clutched a copy of
“Gloriamus on toast,” was Stace’s reply, delivered somewhere between polite enthusiasm and heavy ennui. She squirted a chemical onto one of the tiny pink rolls on her client’s head and gazed at her own reflection in the mirror. She smoothed her eyebrows, which came to curious points on her forehead and exactly matched the colour of her ramrod, coal hair. Doing this allowed her to catch sight of Lynley, who stood behind the glass counter dividing the tiny waiting area from the rest of the shop.
“We don’t do men, luv.” She tossed her head in the direction of the next work station, a movement that clicked her long jet earrings like small castanets. “I know it says unisex in all the adverts, but that’s Mondays and Wednesdays when our Rog is here. Which he isn’t, as you can see. Today, I mean. It’s just me and Sheel. Sorry.”
“Actually, I’m looking for Sheelah Yanapapoulis,” Lynley said.
“Are you? She doesn’t do men either. I mean”—with a wink—“she doesn’t do them
“Stace, I tol’ you I was heading out, din’t I? Linus’s got a bad throat and I was up all night. I got no one on the book coming in this afternoon so there’s no point to me staying.” Movement in a back room accompanied the voice, which sounded plaintive and tired. A handbag clicked closed with a metallic
“He’s good-looking, Sheel,” Stace said with another wink. “You wouldn’t want to miss him. Trust me, luv.”
“Is that my Harold, then, having a bit of fun with you? ’Cause if it is…”
She came out of the room, drawing a black scarf across hair that was short, artfully cut, and coloured a white blonde that came only from bleaching or being born an albino. She hesitated when she saw Lynley. Her blue eyes fl icked over him, taking in and evaluating the coat, the umbrella, and the cut of his hair. Her face became immediately wary; the birdlike features of her nose and chin seemed to recede. But only for a moment before she lifted her head sharply, saying,
“I’m Sheelah Yanapapoulis. Who is it exactly wants to make my acquaintance?”
Lynley produced his warrant card. “Scotland Yard CID.”
She’d been in the process of buttoning a green mackintosh, and although she slowed when Lynley identified himself, she did not stop. She said, “Police, then?”
“Yes.”
“I got nothing to say to you lot about anything.” She adjusted her handbag on her arm.
“It won’t take long,” said Lynley. “And I’m afraid it’s essential.”
The other hairdresser had turned from her client. She said with some alarm, “Sheel, want me to ring Harold for you?”
Sheelah ignored her, saying, “Essential to what? Did one of my boys get up to something this morning? I’ve kept them home today if that’s supposed to be a crime. The whole lot of them got colds. Did they get up to mischief?”
“Not that I know.”
“They’re always playing with the phone, that lot. Gino dialed 999 and yelled fi re last month. Got thrashed for it, he did. But he’s nothing so much as pig-headed, like his dad. I wouldn’t put it by him to do it again for a giggle.”
“I’m not here about your children, Mrs. Yanapapoulis, although Philip did tell me where to fi nd you.”
She was fastening the galoshes round her ankles. She straightened with a grunt and drove her fists into the small of her back. In that position, Lynley saw what he had not noticed before. She was pregnant.
He said, “May we go somewhere to talk?”
“About what?”
“About a man called Robin Sage.”
Her hands flew to her stomach.
“You do know him,” he said.
“And what if I do?”
“Sheel, I’m ringing Harold,” Stace said. “He won’t want you talking to the coppers and you know it.”
Lynley said to Sheelah, “If you’re going home anyway, let me drive you there. We can talk on the way.”
“You listen. I’m a good mother, Mister. No one says different. You just ask anyone around. You c’n ask Stace here.”
“She’s a bleeding saint,” Stace said. “How many times you gone without shoes so those kids of yours could have the trainers they wanted? How many times, Sheel? And when was the last time you had a meal out? And who does the ironing if it isn’t you? And how many new frocks d’you buy last year?” Stace drew a breath. Lynley seized the moment.
“This is a murder investigation,” he said.
The shop’s sole client lowered her magazine. Stace drew her chemical bottle to her breast. Sheelah stared at Lynley and seemed to weigh his words.
“Whose?” she asked.
“His. Robin Sage.”
Her features softened and bravado disappeared. She took a long breath. “Right, then. I’m in Lambeth, and my boys are waiting. If you want to talk, we got to do it there.”
“I’ve a car outside,” Lynley said, and as they left the shop, Stace shouted after them, “I’m still ringing Harold!”
A new cloudburst erupted as Lynley shut the door behind them. He opened his umbrella, and although it was large enough for them both, Sheelah kept her distance from him by opening a small, collapsible one that she took from the pocket of her mackintosh. She didn’t say a word until they were in the car and heading towards Clapham Road and Lambeth.
And then it was only “Some motor, mister. I hope it’s got an alarm system on it, else there won’t be a bolt left when you leave my fl at.” She gave the leather seat a caress. “They’d like this, my boys.”
“You have three children?”
“Five.” She pulled up the collar of her mackintosh and looked out the window.
Lynley gave her a glance. Her attitude was streetwise and her concerns were adult, but she didn’t look old enough to have borne fi ve children. She couldn’t yet have been thirty.
“Five,” he repeated. “They must keep you busy.”
She said, “Go left here. You need to take the South Lambeth Road.”
They drove in the direction of Albert Embankment and when they hit congestion near Vauxhall Station, she directed him through a maze of back streets that finally took them to the tower block in which she and her family
